THE BEST OF 2003

CITY OF GOD
This brutal coming-of-age telling of a teenage boy living in a Dickensian Rio de Janeiro slum is the year’s best foreign language film. Directors Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirrelles keep the action moving at a clipped pace. Remarkably, the juvenile cast is largely made up of non-actors.

EL LEYTON
From Chile, this sexual satire is an excellent example of ensemble acting and low budget filmmaking that never calls attention to itself. Set in a fishing village, cocky Modesto, husband to the beautiful Marta, is cuckolded by his best friend, the town’s Casanova, Leyton. A sardonic sense of humor and the impending betrayal, which leads inevitably to tragedy, make this domestic drama compelling, not to mention the sexual tension between Marta and Leyton.

LAWLESS HEART
Made in 2001, but released this year in the U.S., three funny and bittersweet stories of love lost and won are interwoven in an isolated English coastal town. Unlike other similarly structured films, such as Amores Perros, the convoluted plotlines, coincidences and connections do not overwhelm the film. Instead, the characters are front and center. Briskly paced, engrossing and compassionate, Lawless Heart features a uniformly strong cast, including Bill Nighy, most recently seen in Love Actually.

LOST IN TRANSLATION
Sofia Coppola’s second film joins the select group of the travel/romance genre (Summertime, Before Sunrise). Atmospheric and with a memorable soundtrack, this comedic drama contains the most intimate and best written scene in an American movie this year: middle-aged movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) lying in bed with 23-year-old Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) after a night on the town, both fully clothed, both confiding to the other. Economically depicted, the love story between two lonely, jet-lagged strangers in a foreign land is entirely believable, especially as both stars seem as though they’re not acting, but improvising throughout.

THE MAGDALENE SISTERS
Based on the accounts of decades-long abuses in Catholic asylums for “fallen women” in Ireland, director Peter Mullan doesn’t hold back his anger. This angry indictment of institutional abuse follows three young women in the 1960s enduring the brutality inflicted upon them by the Sisters of Mercy order. The cast ably handles the heighten circumstances without overacting. Hands down, Geraldine McEwan as Sister Bridget is the villain of the year. The film deservedly won the Golden Lion at the 2002 Venice Film Festival.

SHATTERED GLASS
A straightforward morality tale in which the suspense steadily builds as it unfolds. Based on the late 1990s scandal at The New Republic where rising star reporter Stephen Glass fabricated stories, it features the subtitle breakout performance by actor Peter Sarsgaard as the film’s moral linchpin. This is the type of thoughtful character-driven drama that was the stock in trade for such studio directors as Alan J. Pakula or Sydney Pollack, but now is mostly relegated to the independents.

SPELLBOUND
Following eight adolescents through spelling bees to the final showdown, the national championship, this breezy and suspenseful documentary, full of surprising and unguarded moments, features the year’s most colorful cast. It’s a microcosm of America, class, the immigrant experience, rolled into one.

SPIDER
If there was an award for the bleakest, most uncommercial but well-crafted production, this would certainly be a winner. All of the elements - cinematography, production design, writing, acting, direction - are in top form. Tautly adapted by Patrick McGrath from his novel, Spider follows the mental deterioration of Dennis Cleg (Ralph Fiennes), nicknamed Spider by his beloved mother played by Miranda Richardson. She almost steals the film in a triple-role she clearly relishes. Although it may be hard to watch, it is definitely powerful and succeeds in its own right.

TO BE AND TO HAVE
Not simply another charming documentary featuring inquisitive children, director Nicolas Philibert unintrusively observes teacher Georges Lopez patiently presiding over his one-room schoolhouse in rural France. Like Spellbound, this is an excellent example of non-fiction storytelling. Touching and featuring an uninhibitive class of children awkwardly growing up, resistance is futile.

WINGED MIGRATION
You don’t have to be an ornithologist to be mesmerized by this film. Breathtaking cinematography captures the miraculous and arduous life of birds. Filmed up close and around the world with minimal narration, various species are literally followed as they fly in the air during the spring and fall migrations. The documentary also features one of this year’s most beautiful scores.